[mindyourbody - 8] st/myb/page 18/12/14

8
THE STRAITS TIMES
DECEMBER 18 2014
Cover Story
Spreading Yuletide joy to the sick
JOAN CHEW
Some hospitals here are
making sure their inpatients
feel the Christmas spirit
M
edical staff and volunteers are
pulling out all the stops to make
sure patients in hospitals and
hospices are given a dose of
Christmas cheer.
Clinical wards are now awash in
festive colours, carols fill the corridors and even
menus are specially crafted to include holiday
staples, such as turkey and pudding.
Mind Your Body checks out the celebrations.
joanchew@sph.com.sg
A taste of Christmas minus the guilt
Spending Christmas in hospital is no joyous
affair, but many patients can, at least, look
forward to having festive fare served to their
bedsides.
That is what eight hospitals, both public and
private, are planning to do, based on checks by
Mind Your Body.
Patients will get to enjoy traditional
favourites, such as turkey, creamy soups and
hearty potato dishes, as well as desserts such
as pudding. These are available either on
Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, as an
alternative or add-on to the usual Western
menu selection.
In addition, they need not worry about the
meals being overly indulgent – the dishes are
all made healthier with the approval of
dietitians.
For instance, at the four private hospitals
under the Parkway Pantai group, soups will be
prepared with low-salt broth, said the group’s
chief dietitian Lock Poh Leng.
This includes cream of chestnut and
pumpkin with honey and roasted butternut
soup. “The amounts of butter and whipped
cream used for the creamy soups have been
reduced by at least half from the original
recipes. Instead, low-fat milk, herbs and spices
are used,” she said.
The chefs will also skim off the layer of oil on
top of the soup before serving it to patients,
she added.
Each of the four hospitals – Mount Elizabeth
Orchard, Mount Elizabeth Novena, Gleneagles
and Parkway East – has its own Christmas
menu, with different types of soups, desserts
and side dishes, along with the main course of
roast turkey.
In previous years, about 40 per cent of their
patients opted for these special meals, said
Mr Tan Chow Jin, senior manager at the food,
nutrition and beverage department of the four
hospitals.
At National University Hospital (NUH),
healthier cooking methods are used to prepare
its holiday offerings, which include roast turkey
stuffed with mushrooms and chestnuts, roast
herb potatoes and balsamic glazed carrots with
grilled shallots.
The dishes are mostly roasted, baked or
grilled – methods which require little oil, yet
retain most of the nutrients in the food, said
Ms Lam Mei Peng, a dietitian at NUH’s food
service partner Sodexo.
Low-fat milk, instead of the full-cream
PHOTOS: PAUSE FOR A CAUSE, LIM SIN THAI,
LIM YAOHUI FOR THE STRAITS TIMES
CLOCKWISE FROM ABOVE LEFT: Nur
As’Syurah Abdul Rashid, with her mother,
Madam Nurul Qamar Mohd Thoha and
members of cosplay volunteer group Pause
for a Cause, at KK Women’s and Children’s
Hospital; Airis Putri Eryna with the cookies
she baked at National University Hospital
Medical Centre; and Madam Maggie Yeo plays
with dog trainer Bernard Yeo’s miniature
schnauzer during a pet-therapy session at
Dover Park Hospice.
ST PHOTOS: DESMOND FOO, LAU FOOK KONG
Chefs Norman Leow (above right) and Burhanudin
Mani (above left) from National University
Hospital, and Parkway Pantai group’s chief
dietitian Lock Poh Leng (right) and executive chef
of Mount Elizabeth Novena Hospital Wong Boo Hor
(far right), with the dishes they will be serving on
Christmas Eve.
version, is used in the cinnamon honey
pumpkin soup. Also, butter has been replaced
with margarine, which has no cholesterol and is
lower in harmful saturated fat.
Ms Lam said the entire meal packs about
12g of fibre, or about 48 per cent of a person’s
recommended daily intake.
Dietary fibre not only helps to prevent
constipation, but also lowers bad cholesterol
levels in the blood, controls blood sugar levels,
aids in weight loss and promotes a healthy gut,
she said.
Meanwhile, patients at KK Women’s and
Children’s Hospital (KKH) and Singapore
General Hospital (SGH) get two festive menus
to choose from.
At KKH, one of the menus is for those who
may need to lose weight or control their
diabetes. Its senior dietitian Grace Quek said
this menu is even lower in fat, sodium and
carbohydrates than the standard festive meal
Deck the wards with boughs of holly
the hospital is serving, which includes
minestrone soup, roast turkey with cranberry
sauce and a fruit salad.
SGH, on the other hand, has prepared a
Western halal “soft” diet for people with
difficulty chewing and poor dentition, featuring a
turkey stroganoff dish. The other menu has
turkey roulade with a mushroom and walnut
stuffing. For a healthier fix, the turkey skin for
both dishes will be removed.
At Tan Tock Seng Hospital (TTSH), patients
will be treated to muffins which are low in
calories and sugar.
TTSH dietitian Alvernia Chua said each
muffin weighs only 60g, compared with a
regular muffin serving of 100g to 120g.
KKH’s Ms Quek said these special treats are
meant to “bring joy to our inpatients, who
cannot be home to celebrate with their
families”.
“It is an effort to make them feel at home,”
she added.
Christmas light-ups and decorations are not
confined to shopping malls, hotels and offices.
Hospitals, too, have decked their premises in
festive style.
Take a stroll through Mount Alvernia Hospital
this month and you will find Christmas trees at
almost every turn, many of which are made with
recycled materials.
During a one-hour tour last Wednesday, Mind
Your Body spotted trees made with items which
can be easily found in homes. They include plastic
cups, which are illuminated with blue LED lights,
shuttlecocks arranged in a flower pattern and
attached to toilet rolls, and egg cartons which are
painted green and stacked on top of one another.
At the paediatric ward, the children were so
intrigued by the Christmas tree and snowman
decor – made from colourful balloons – that a
balloon pump is kept at the nurses’ station to
inflate balloons on request.
Business analyst Joel Teo, 38, said such
decorations gave the illusion that he was not
staying in a hospital.
He wanted so much to feel at home that he
chose to wear his own clothes while being
hospitalised at Mount Alvernia Hospital for a
muscle injury in his right shoulder.
At Tan Tock Seng Hospital’s coronary care unit,
senior staff nurse Jasmine Huang said the team
had been collecting used medicine bottles since
the start of the year, with the aim of using them to
build a Christmas tree. More than 100 of these
bottles were used to build their 1m-tall tree.
Her team also used expired blood-collection
tubes and plastic medicine cups to decorate the
ceilings in the ward.
Besides these visual treats, patients also get to
take part in Christmas-related activities held within
the various health institutions.
One such patient is four-year-old Airis Putri
Eryna, who attended a cookie-making workshop at
National University Hospital (NUH) Medical Centre
last Friday.
It was a treat for Airis. Her doctor had
postponed her chemotherapy session that day as
she had contracted the flu and a cough.
However, the girl
refused to leave without
making her own cookies,
said her mother, Madam
Putri Nazirah, a
21-year-old clinic assistant.
As she had to be kept away from other
children taking part in the workshop, a
special one-on-one session was arranged for her.
The shy girl, who has acute lymphoblastic
leukaemia, got to mould dough into different
shapes, such as Mickey Mouse, during the
one-hour session, which was supervised by
Ms Esther Chua, programme coordinator at the
Children’s Cancer Foundation.
When asked if she would share her cookies with
her two younger brothers, Airis shook her head
gently.
Ms Chua said other activities lined up for young
patients at NUH include carolling tomorrow and
a Christmas party on Dec 23.
At KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital, young
patients got to hang out with anime characters
earlier this month, when four members from
cosplay volunteer group Pause for a Cause popped
by their wards.
One of the patients, 12-year-old Nur As’Syurah
Abdul Rashid, said Little Red Riding Hood was her
favourite as she used to dress up as the character
herself. “I was surprised to see them in the
hospital. I didn’t think they would come here.”
Even animals got in on the celebrations. On
Monday, patients at HCA Hospice Care and Dover
Park Hospice had a pleasant surprise during their
regular pet-therapy sessions, when eight dogs and
a rabbit came dressed up for Christmas. Some
wore Santa costumes, while others had reindeer
antlers on their heads.
The sight of the furry visitors lifted patients’
spirits. One such person was Madam Maggie Yeo,
57, who enjoyed herself so much that she asked
the dog trainer if she could keep his miniature
schnauzer, amid laughter from the hospice staff.
The housewife, who has kidney cancer, has
been at the hospice since last month.
Tomorrow, the Institute of Mental Health (IMH)
will be holding its annual Christmas carnival for
120 of its long-stay patients, as well as 30 other
patients from Hougang Care Centre and Tai Pei
Social Service.
They will get to play old-school games, such as
kuti-kuti (animal-shaped plastic tokens) and five
stones, which also serve to improve their hand-eye
coordination, said IMH senior occupational
therapist Jayson Davamoni Thomas. Such games
are also used as a form of reminiscence therapy to
help patients recall past experiences and
strengthen their memories.
Student volunteer Serena Lin, 19, helped to
pack goodie bags, decorate the carnival stalls and
will man two booths with 13 schoolmates from
ITE College East.
The thought of interacting with people with
mental conditions does not faze Ms Lin, who had
volunteered at IMH once before.
“At first, I thought it would be scary to work with
people who cannot handle their emotions. Later,
I found them to be quite friendly.”
Continued on page 10